Beyond the Frame: Solitude, But Not Alone
Photograph: The empty bench in the Contra, Mission La Purísima Concepción, June 1998. For many years, I tried to make two photography trips each year—one in late spring and another in the fall. In June 1998, I spent a week exploring California's Central Coast, visiting some of the historic California missions and experiencing the dramatic coastline of Big Sur. On the first afternoon, I stopped at my favorite of all the California missions, Mission La Purísima Concepción, outside Lompoc. Unlike most of the missions, La Purísima has been extensively restored, and it is surrounded by largely undeveloped land. Walking onto the grounds, you can almost feel yourself stepping back more than 200 years, to a time when the mission was a center of religious and community life. That afternoon, I had brought my large-format camera, looking for photographs to make on both black-and-white negative film and color transparencies. I entered the chapel and continued through it into the sacristy, even...
